


After the breach

by BlankA4



Category: RWBY
Genre: Gen, Inspired by Real Events, Other, Short One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-03
Updated: 2020-10-03
Packaged: 2021-03-08 03:54:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 503
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26799157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlankA4/pseuds/BlankA4
Summary: After the breach there was clapping.It is just after the breach and the city is trying to rebuild. Inspired by the clap for carers.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 3





	After the breach

After the breach there was clapping. 

“Hey, what's that noise?” Blake asked looking up from her book.  
The other members of team RWBY paused what they were doing around the dorm room, straining their ears. The sound was distant and strangely familiar. Ruby rolled out of her cocoon of blankets, casting her game a side to open the window. 

The sound although faint was surrounding the city drifting through the night on the breeze. Gathering by the window they all paused to listen. It wasn’t one sound rather a collection of people calling their gratitude into the night just as the clock tower finished striking 8.

“Is that people… clapping?” Yang asked. The others responded with blank, confused looks.  
Blake's cat ears twisted back and forth, her mouth slowly growing into a smile, “Yes, that and car horns, pots and pans being bashed together, a few instruments, quite a few drums and hundreds... no thousands of people clapping and cheering.”

“But why?” Ruby asked.

“For us I think…” Weiss said pulling her scroll from her pocket, “Yes look, I saw this article earlier, saying that people living near to where the breach happened were going to be clapping at 8o’clock to encourage one another and to thank the hunters who fought… I guess it spread around the city.”

“Whoa...” Ruby breathed. And it was a whoa moment, standing there by the window listening to the noise. It wasn’t loud, or constant, or strong but it was there. With a bit of concentration she could pick out the individual sounds and direction. Just like Blake had said there was the distinct sound of a saucepan and wooden spoon clanging together nearby, the sound of car horns somewhere to her right, and all around the sound of clapping. Impossible to pin down the exact source of the sound and it was so different to that of clapping at a stadium. It didn’t roar rather it rolled around the city engulfing all in a gentle acknowledgement that although a tragedy had taken place and normal would never quite be the same; people would…no are rebuilding and recovering. And behind every sound a person cheering for them, for each other. The thought filled her with hope, despite the disaster they had failed to stop, there were still people cheering, thankful for their work and hopeful for tomorrow.

Yang brought her hands together in a resounding clap, joining the purr of the cheer. The other girls joined in, and although their own claps drowned out what they could hear they knew others would hear them. Together the city would heal and the academy would recover. After a minute or two they paused to listen again only to find the noise gone, replaced by the sound of a sleeping city. With palms stinging Ruby shut the window, shivering from the night's air. If she hadn’t heard it, she wouldn’t have believed it was ever there. But she had heard it. The silence that followed couldn’t take that away.

**Author's Note:**

> Hearing the clapping for the NHS in the first lockdown made me want to write about it, and then I got wondering if something similar would happen after the breach. I don't mean any disrespect by writing real life event into fanfic and am sorry if it comes across as making little of a very real thing.  
> Thanks for reading and wishing you well,  
> BlankA4


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